Obama administration downplays 'spin' on Iran payments

Hours after a report that the United States transferred an additional $1.3 billion in cash to Iran in two shipments earlier this year in addition to the first planeload of $400 million, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to again tamp down the notion that the money amounted to a ransom payment for American prisoners who were concurrently set free.

"Well, I haven't seen the report," Blinken told CNN's Chris Cuomo in an interview Wednesday morning. "But here's what's going on, we achieved a nuclear deal with Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon, that's made us safer, made countries around the world safer."

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The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night that the Obama administration briefed lawmakers on the two shipments, which occurred between Jan. 22 and Feb. 5, in the same manner as the previous $400 million.

As part of that deal, Blinken explained, sanctions were lifted on Iran that "freed up" previously frozen Iranian assets that it could not bring back to is country.

"Now as part of the deal, Iran is bringing back some of that money. But the overwhelming majority of that money is going into their economy which is in dire straits. It's not going to the military," Blinken said.

When pressed by Cuomo on whether the payment of the money represented a quid pro quo to free the American prisoners, Blinken responded, "No."

Cuomo followed up: "So all of these discussions about the planes and the money—that's just spin?"

Blinken repeated "absolutely," reiterating the administration's stance that it was in an "environment" where it was possibly to accomplish multiple things as it negotiated the separate nuclear deal with Iran.

"We owed Iran a lot of money from way back when," Blinken said, explaining the circumstances for the payment dating back to the failed arms deal to the former shah of Iran. "We had sold them weapons. This is during the shah before the revolution. The revolution happened. We kept the money. We didn't send them the weapons. There was an arbitration that President Reagan backed to decide what to do. We were able to conclude a deal that actually saved us billions of dollars."

Donald Trump's campaign seized upon the report late Tuesday night, with senior communications adviser Jason Miller remarking in a statement that the latest report "only makes his blunder even worse."

"Hillary Clinton’s support for President Obama’s approach to Iran, including the deeply flawed nuclear deal she helped spearhead, reflects the same bad judgment that characterized her foreign policy decision-making as Secretary of State," Miller said in the statement. "The United States should not be helping fund the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and Hillary Clinton needs to disavow these secret payments immediately.”